


I'll Be Homeward Bound In Time

by SongOfWizardry



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Xhorhouse (Critical Role)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:21:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26440321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SongOfWizardry/pseuds/SongOfWizardry
Summary: A series of drabbles set in and around the Xhorhaus. Let the domestic fluff ensue.(Tags will be updated as I add to this.)
Relationships: Caduceus Clay & Jester Lavorre, Frumpkin & Caleb Widogast
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	1. lights

Caduceus sits, cross-legged, in the shade of the looming tree that’s growing out of their house (their house!). Jester is leaning against the stone wall of the rooftop garden – or at least, what Cad promises her will be a rooftop garden, because it’s currently just a bit of a mess of soft earth, cool underneath her. Every so often, she’ll look up to watch Cad: he hums as he works, a tune she doesn’t recognise, and he’s slow, but steady, as he takes each jar from the pile next to him, sets it between his knees, shuts his eyes, and fills it with warm, glowing light, then closes the jar, and ties the rope snugly around its neck. 

(Jester doesn’t notice, but occasionally, Caduceus will look up to watch her: Jester opens jar after jar after jar, setting them out in a row in front of her, then leans forward on her knees, says, _Okayyy, Traveller, let’s light them up, yeah?_ or something similar, and then, like she’s playing an instrument, taps the jars in a pattern he can’t discern, sending little flowing spheres of daylight into each one, and when there’s a dozen glowing jars around her, she will sit back and, grinning, twist a lid onto each one.)

Caduceus and Jester spend days up there, methodically working through hundreds of the jars, stringing them up into the lower branches of the tree every evening. On day ten, Caduceus ties up one more string into the boughs of the tree, reaching up into it with all his seven-something feet of height, then steps back, looking up into the gently glowing branches, the leaves lit golden, and sighs. Jester walks up to him, and he’s so much taller than her, so she loops an arm around his waist. “Well? Whatcha think, Cad?”

Caduceus sighs again, and Jester sees a slow smile spread across his entire face—his long nose turning up, his eyes crinkling, his shoulders relaxing. “I think it’s done, Jester.”


	2. rooms

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning: descriptions of institutionalisation, including physical restraints

The last time Caleb had a room of his own, it had a flat cot in it with leather straps to tie him down, and wooden floors that splintered and dug into his bare feet, and a bucket in the corner, and a door that bolted on the outside. Even through the fog that covers most of his time in the Sanatorium, he can remember the walls of that small room, the bloodstains he left all over it, the feeling—

Well. What it means, anyway, he thinks firmly to himself, is that this is an improvement. _Ja_ , a very large improvement. He summons Frumpkin and settles him on the bed (not cot, not scratchy-mattress inn bed, a proper, soft bed, with blankets) and tells the cat as much, and Frumpkin watches him with that slightly haughty expression that fae-creatures and cats have in common, then meows, and without Caleb’s prompting, makes his way over to settle on his lap, pads over his knees once, twice, and then settles down to nap. Caleb sighs, and pets his cat. “This is good,” he tells Frumpkin, out loud. 

Frumpkin purrs in response, and Caleb lets his fingers drift over the cat’s back, as his eyes drift over the wallpaper, the rug on the floor, the door with a lock on the inside that leads to the library and the rest of the house and the Nein, and everything, from the eternal darkness outside to the barely-audible voices of his friends coming through the walls, is so _different_ than anything he could dare to have imagined. “This is good,” he says once more, and he thinks he might believe it this time. 

**Author's Note:**

> I love these disaster children and I love myself some domestic fluff, so here you all go.   
> The title of this fic is from the folk song _Homeward Bound_ which just gives me soft feelings; I'm a big fan of this [Peter Hollens version](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=878OTcl6iw8&ab_channel=PeterHollens).
> 
> Come find me on [ where I yell about Critical Role and various other things.](https://songofwizardry.tumblr.com/)


End file.
